News

Never Mind The Price, Feel The Quality…

Recently I received a letter from a local real estate agency which is part of a major national franchise. The authors of this unsolicited correspondence were the agency’s sales manager and another person described as its 'Area Specialist'.

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Scam! That Innocent Phone Call Offering To Help You

Currently, there are at least one hundred active wealth spruikers in Australia. All have one aim – to make themselves richer by making you poorer. An article from the Jenman website. Most use a similar method of enticement (or ‘bait’) to entice you into their lair. Their scams usually start with a phone call which will mention something that appeals to the average family – ‘reduce tax’, ‘prepare for retirement’, ‘no obligation’ – and so on. So...

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Long Overdue: Regulation Of Finance & Mortgage Brokers

[Author – Tim ODwyer] It has been almost two years since the release of the Ministerial Council of Consumer Affairs’ Discussion Paper detailing options for a national regulatory scheme for finance and mortgage brokers. On Monday this week ABC Radio’s The World Today programme reported on what it described as “the miserable and sad end of the property boom in some Australian cities.” Easy money and climbing interest rates had combined to deliver unprecedented rates...

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Commission Factoring – A Dangerous Development

We have argued that real estate commissions are a major cause of corruption in the real estate industry. But what if the drive for commission is intensified? What if the estate agent has spent the commission in advance, and fears that the sale may collapse? It is the common experience of lawyers and conveyancers that estate agents involve themselves in real estate contract matters when they have no right or reason to do so. Commission rage is often...

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Ultra-Low Deposits

[Author – Tim ODwyer] Every so often Target Stores have a 12.5%-off sale with “no deposit lay-bys”. As most keen shoppers know, sales are common but lay-bys without a deposit are unusual. To purchase on lay-by you usually need to pay 10% of the price. If you have just $20.00 available, no more than $200.00 worth of goods will be “laid by” for you until you pay the balance. Real estate sales in Queensland are...

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A Real Estate “Rant And Rave” From NSW

The email was from a very frustrated consumer who wanted to share with me and The Australian Real Estate Blog’s readers his recent real estate and conveyancing experience while trying to buy a property in New South Wales. His disturbing story has been edited a little, but the essential details of a very costly, and probably not unfamiliar, exercise remain as a lesson to all.

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